Disabled Veteran Wrongfully Ticketed for Keeping Garbage Totes Out

BUFFALO, NY --- John Tinti is a veteran who is trying to walk away from the memories of war.

"I just tried to get home alive, that's all." Tinti said. "I try not to remember to much of any of it."

Tinti was wounded three times in Vietnam and is now a disabled vet.
To make life easier, the city gave him disability exemption tags for his garbage totes. This allows him to keep them in front of his home, so he doesn't have to wheel them to the backyard.

"They walk right by them and they leave the tickets on my steps -- they don't even have the courtesy to put them somewhere so they won't get lost," Tinti said.

John is frustrated police continue to write him 50 dollar tickets that site him for leaving his garbage cans 5 feet from the sidewalk

The sticker should waive the requirement.

"Yesterday they told me to call back and I called back," Tinti said. "I was on the phone for 18 minutes waiting for someone to answer the phone -- nobody answered the phone - I finally got aggravated and hung up."

What aggravates John the most is he keeps getting ticketed, receiving a couple dozen in the last two years.

Eventually, each citation is dismissed with a letter from the city. We reached out to the city spokesperson Michael DeGeorge who said in a statement quote:

"There's a process in place with the city for a situation like this..The cases in March and July were both dismissed."

A notice will be given to police reminding them that Mr Tinte has a disability sticker.

John hopes the ticket he received this week will be the last - so he can have peace of mind.

"I'm going to mail that in - and will be dismissed like all the others -- but it's the constant harassment that they give me a ticket and I have to go through this with the city," Tinte said.